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June 2007 night sky guide and podcast

June 1, 2007

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To help you learn about the southern night sky, Sydney Observatory provides a night sky star map or chart for each month of the year (see below). We also provide a complementary audio guide of the month’s night sky (also below), presented by one of Sydney Observatory astronomy experts. You can listen online, or download the audio onto your ipod or mp3 player.

Allan Kreiuter, Sydney Observatory astronomy educator, tells you when and where in June you can see the planets Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. You will also learn how to find some particularly bright stars and constellations: Antares in Scorpius, Orion, Spica in Virgo, Sirius in Canis Major and Procyon in Canis Minor.

For more about what you’ll see in the southern sky in June, listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

The night sky map shows the stars, constellations and planets visible in the night sky from Sydney, Australia, and will also be usable at any other place in Australia. Special directions are given to help you locate the Southern Cross, also called Crux, for any time of the year. The locations of two nearby galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are also given. Each month’s chart is placed online at the end of the previous month.

The monthly star maps are provided as PDF or portable document format files. To view PDF star charts you will need to download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader if it’s not on your computer already.

7 responses to “June 2007 night sky guide and podcast”

Good question Ravi. If you are looking down on a street map or any geographical map, east and west are arranged as you suggest. However, hold the star map above your head and you will find the directions match the given directions.

Hello Jan. Sagittarius is below Scorpius in the east. At this time of the year is still very low in the sky in the early evening. Wait till July when it will be discussed in detail on the podcast, it will be higher in the sky and it will be easier to find on both the star map and in the sky.

Dear Francis it is confusing when you have not used a sky map before. It tells you what you should see if you look directly up in early evenings in June from Sydney or elsewhere in Australia. Most people find it easier to hold the map in front of them with the direction they are looking at the bottom of the map, eg if they are looking south then S is on the bottom of the map in front of them. It also helps to have a small torch with red cellophane attached with a rubber band or sticky tape so as to be able to look at the map and at the sky.